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"Clooney's father, journalist Nick Clooney, 78, was with him and was also arrested, as were Martin Luther King III, NAACP President Ben Jealous, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.), Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) and former Rep. Tom Andrews (D-Mass.). The group was restrained with plastic handcuffs and taken away by police. "

"Now the actor George Clooney, did you notice how old and fat he looks, has been arrested his persecuting the good people at the Sudanese Foreign Embassy. And these are good people, they are helping freedom fighter Joseph Kony fight back against Obamacare in Uganda. Why does Obama want to bring healthcare to another country when its disastrous effects can still be felt here. Remember Hurricane Katrina? Did Obamacare help then? No. The bottom line is Obama and all the scum like this has-been Clooney, who does nothing but have sex on screen, should all be arrested or murdered... not that I AM IMPLYING THAT YOU SHOULD KILL THEM!!! and we'll be right back after two minutes of dead air."

And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had their kid in Namibia to raise awareness for poverty and AIDS. They then sold the first pictures of their kid over 7 million dollars, giving a profits to charities serving African children.

Awareness is one thing. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Do we send troops in there? Write letters? Send money? Equip a counter-insurgency?

I don't mean to sound cruel but this shit is happening in a lot of places all over the world. Most countries turn a blind eye too it. If the US starts getting involved we'll surely hear cries of "imperialism" and all the other anti-American rhetoric that happens when the US starts to get involved in foreign affairs.

He isn't just doing that. He launched a program to use satellites to observe troop movements in these conflit zones. (link) And awareness sounds like slacktivism until you realize that another name for this is "lobbying" when you're talking to government officials.

Well you could stop supplying the Sudanese governement with weapons for a start... I suppose.

If the US starts getting involved we'll surely hear cries of "imperialism" and all the other anti-American rhetoric that happens when the US starts to get involved in foreign affairs.

Newsflash America has been supplying the Sudanese government with weapons for the last decade. In fact the Obama administration gave the Sudanese government a waiver from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act just last October. Clooney had a meeting with Obama a few days ago and has gone out and done this in response, probably a good indicator of how well that meeting went.

Poor America. Whenever it tries to do a little good in the world, by supplying governments who use child soldiers with military aid; people criticise it!

Embarrassing that he's being upvoted. These people in the Nuba mountains are being attacked precisely because the repeatedly genocidal Sudanese government wishes to ethnically cleanse the area at their Southern border, to prevent it seceding and joining South Sudan. So the (very limited) military aid is going to the guys who are defending themselves, supported by the African Union and the UN, and not to the belligerents. As you say, two completely different countries.

Edit: Incidentally, it is pretty obvious what the US should do, which is support the already existent joint UN/African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan, to set up a buffer zone between Sudan and South Sudan, covering the Nuba region.

I mean, I feel like...uhh.....well, umm, uhh...it's just like, that, umm, well....wait? What? So there's this massive 'anti-child soldier in Uganda' thing going on right now that's basically not the whole story re: this Kony 2012 thing, but here is an article and a link to the exemption to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act for a list of countries that showcases how the Sudan basically still uses them, and no one is up in arms about that? America, what the hell!?

Civilians alleging torture by the SPLA claim fingernails being torn out, burning plastic bags dripped on children to make their parents hand over weapons and villagers burned alive in their huts if rebels were suspected of spending the night there. In May 2011, the SPLA allegedly set fire to over 7,800 homes in Unity state.

President Barack Obama issued a memorandum Friday (January) clearing the way. A White House official said the decision could potentially promote peace and regional stability in East Africa.

I support his efforts to help other people, but most people are afraid of being arrested because they will lose their job and have difficulty supporting their family.

The actual process of being arrested and spending a few days in county is not anything anyone should be afraid of, unless you have a medical condition. Don't ever let yourself be arrested if you are diabetic or need other medicine in a timely manner. I have seen the sheriffs deny someone their medication day after day until the man had a seizure in the cell and had to be dragged away unconscious. Never saw that guy again, but the sheriffs gave me an orange for keeping him from bashing his body against the beds while he was seizing.

He also knows he has nothing to lose by having an arrest on his record. What, are future employers going to do a background check and turn him down for a job based on this arrest? No. The average American may not be able to safely say the same thing. So he is taking his advantageous position, and putting it to use.

I know a lot of people are going to want to accuse him of just being another rich actor who claims to want to change the world. Or "read the newspapers and say whats in them is our opinion" - but this guy has just got back from likely a dangerous trip to sudan and is doing his utmost to raise awareness.

Actually, you can see from his choice in films, that he is well versed in current events, and that he has a real love and concern for some issues.
We shouldn't dismiss it on the basis of him being more successful and rich than we are.

The thing about authoritarian governments who wage/condone violent conflicts on their own people is that they're not going to stop just because someone asked them to (I'm looking at you, UN). The only way they would stop is if

A) They kill/capture/scare off/oppress to submission all the people that oppose them.

or

B) Another country removes them from power.

Option A happens more than Option B. Option A is generally worse for the people in the oppressed country. Option B generally receives a lot more publicity and sometimes becomes unpopular because it affects people in the intervening country.

Removing someone's national sovereignty necessarily implies taking sovereignty for yourself. That's all well and good if you're actually only interested in the well being of the target, but what if you're not. The amount of power you wield is a massive liability for the entire world, and the only thing protecting the world from you is your restraint in the face of national sovereignty. Once you start being unrestrained, you become an abusive, predatory, murderous bully.

So, let's say we allow you to invade another country for none of the standard reasons to engage in war. We allow you to pre-emptively launch a war of aggression only under a certain condition. OK, that seems like an OK deal if we make that condition something we really want solved, like children dying. But according to game theory, you've just given the bully an incentive to make sure people think kids are dying, if they want to invade another country. That can be done in two ways: 1) lies 2) cause kids to die. Lies don't always work because we've got international observers. When the international observers are few, you can infiltrate the observing organization and influence their reports.

But assuming you can't lie enough to get people to believe kids are dying, now you have an incentive to actually cause kids to die. Easy ways to do that are to arm one side in conflict, send in provocateurs, send religious missionaries to create conflicts, etc, etc. Other ways are to create economic problems through sanctions or creating dependencies on foreign aid and then manipulating the distribution of goods.

So now, imagine you have a shithead country, and they want to wage wars and expand their domain, but they can't, because the world won't let them. Suddenly, there's an opening, you could launch a war if it's for humanitarian purposes. Oh cool! Now let's go find a humanitarian crisis in a region we want to invade! Ugh, there's none right here and this would be a great spot to setup AFRICOM or a great place to monitor the Chinese or a great source of natural resources. You know what, let's just manufacture a crisis. We'll ship in billions of dollars in cash on palettes and then lose it, so we have a source of money in the region that's not traceable. Then let's just make sure the private weapons companies are selling into the region, and BAM! Crisis! ALRIGHT!!

And because of game theory, those who are against interventionist policies see Kony and Clooney and Jolie and all the rest of these media events as propaganda by an aggressive and violent military, with the motivation, with the means, with the track record, with the evidence, and even with many public statements that all point in this direction.

Except that this isn't a manufactured crisis. The idea that a country that is actively engaged in a slaughtering their own people has sovereignty is laughably antiquated. The goal is far more simple then your idea of "game theory." By creating stable countries that are integrated into the global economy, the United States benefits by developing consumer markets that can be tapped by US businesses and that US businesses can invest in. Also, the conditions that lead people to turn to terrorism are more present in unstable countries where people are oppressed rather that stable countries where people are not.

Imagine for a moment you have garnered a degree of prestige and international fame that most people will never experience. With this fame comes power and money. After years cruising through the incredibly vapid, incredibly shallow world of Hollywood you one day realize that despite all your fame and all your power you feel like something is missing. You don't know quite what...just that it's always there.

Like a splinter in your mind.

With your power, influence and money you are also a world traveler. You see things many people who sit at their armchairs will never see. You feel things directly from the source - you witness atrocities that will never be broadcasted to the people in your home country and suddenly you realize what it is that is missing.

Your contribution to humanity.

You see - it is my opinion that many people feel like they should give back to the community in some way. Some volunteer with the homeless, some volunteer with underprivledged kids, some volunteer for Big Brothers/Big Sisters - there's a wide variety of ways many of us can directly help the communities we live in.

Celebrities who feel like they should give back can use the very fame, power and money that they have acquired to raise awareness about whatever cause they choose. It's a big world out there with a lot of problems.

No one person can fix everything but everyone can try to help fix at least one thing.

The very fact that Clooney is risking his life to raise awarness about something he believes in enough to travel to Sudan and put himself in danger instead of staying Stateside and reveling in the bullshit that is Hollywood is to be respected in my opinion.

tl;dr It's always easier to talk shit than it is to get off your ass and help with something you believe in.

It's not just an actor telling them stuff. He actually supported a program to monitor the violence and troop movements from satellites which is helping with building intel and an international justice case.

There were 5 congressmen arrested alongside Clooney today. And yet, the only person anyone is talking about being arrested was Clooney.

So no, it's not about congress needing a damned actor to keep them abreast, it's about the public needing a damned actor to keep them abreast. If you're going to snarkily condemn anyone, it should be the public, not congress.

I thought I saw a while back that Clooney has his own private satellite that he uses to take pictures of Sudan, and he discovered mass burial sites or something. If so, he is a badass who puts his money where his mouth is and I respect him for that.

It's great when I see celebrities do shit like this. They have a voice to millions, why not try to use it for something good and inspire others?
It's sad to think how something like this doesn't affect people like him, yet we may lose our jobs if we ever got arrested. Arresting people should be the last option, it ruins people's lives.

All the more reason he's such a good guy. He knows that an arrest on his record will not hurt his future career or bankroll very much if at all. Since that's something few people can say, he is taking advantage of his unique situation in a good way. By making sacrifices the average person cannot.

I'm not sure how many people who skim over this will know just how politically knowledgeable and active Clooney is. He's not just another Hollywood flavour of the month activist, he's pretty legit. He's said many times in the past he has zero political future but if one current celeb ever had what it takes it would be him in my opinion.

I've had a question about this ever since i first saw it on the news today. WHY was Clooney arrested? For speaking his mind? Is he not allowed to protest like a 'normal' person without getting arrested?
You don't see any news media answering this question, does anyone know?

That is because he was smart enough to pick a single theme or problem to address not 10,000 incoherent ones. Don't get me wrong I am all about occupy but one dude is weed legalization, another about wealth inequality, another about gay marriage and so on. You gotta pick one problem and focus on it.

I remember hearing a radio interview with an occupy representative, when asked what he was protesting about simply answered: "where to start? Let's start with everything and go from there." I nearly had to stick toothpicks in my eyeballs to stop them from rolling backwards.

He's not going to Tweet endlessly about some sort of conspiracy against him, like OWS did. He's not going to whine about police abuse or mistreatment, like OWS did. He won't loose focus, like OWS did. And, he's not going to do this everyday and make his actions seem insignificant, like OWS did.

Instead, he's doing it to draw attention to his cause, unlike OWS. He's already been doing actual work to get politicians to take action for his cause, unlike OWS. He went to DC to testify before Congress and speak with the President, unlike OWS.

George Clooney has spoke to a US senate committee asking them to send a team of diplomats to China to discuss ways of stopping the bombing by the president of Sudan, Omar al'bashir. The US and China fuel this slaughter through buying Sudan Oil where money is used to buy bombs. Clooney isn't asking the govt to stop buying Sudan’s oil but seeking to freeze their assets and demand humanitarian aid be let into the country, to hold them accountable and stop the racism and killing. That is how to be a true social activist in my opinion. It's all politics.

Not that I agree with him on much, but I can respect that he accepts the consequences of doing what he believes to be right. This is the way civil disorder works, you stand up, you accept your lumps. You don't whine that you shouldn't have to pay a price.